For Lovers
by orangeflavor
Summary: "Franky Shepard had the kind of smile that seemed always on the verge of laughter, but the kind you couldn't share in public. She had a smile for lovers." - Shepard and Kaidan – sore muscles, tender hearts.


Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Author's Note: For **tlcinbflo** , my forever Shenko-whisperer. Set in later ME1, Francesca Shepard and Kaidan Alenko at the start of something great. T for semi-crude humor and an unrepentant Shepard.

For Lovers

" _Franky Shepard had the kind of smile that seemed always on the verge of laughter, but the kind you couldn't share in public. She had a smile for lovers."_ \- Shepard and Kaidan – sore muscles, tender hearts.

"It'll be fun, Shepard. Knocking a few heads and putting baddies away. Blowing off some steam. Flexing those righteous Spectre muscles. It'll be _fun_ ," Shepard growled mockingly, a dark chuckle falling from her lips. "That krogan will be the death of me," she vowed, shaking her head. She stopped, pushing against the ceiling panel above her. It didn't give. Frowning, Shepard looked down to Kaidan beneath her as she rested along his shoulders. "A little to the left, Alenko."

Kaidan gripped her thighs against his cheeks and stepped left, his back already aching from the full weight of his commander sitting on his shoulders. "Remind me never to trust Wrex when he uses the words 'fun' and 'fortified' in the same sentence ever again," he grunted, managing a short chuckle after the words.

It wasn't the first pirate stronghold they'd stormed. And certainly not the first time Wrex had charged off on his own, shotgun blazing, gruff yet maniacal laughter echoing through the halls. But it was the first stronghold Shepard had ever been trapped in. She and Kaidan had made it through the second lower level of the bunker when the failsafes were tripped and the place went on lockdown. Wrex was trapped in the basement level, though the word 'trapped' was probably an overstatement when he had already blown a hole through the pirate leader's stomach and any other unlucky souls confined to the room were just as quickly and brutally dispatched.

With little cover and an over-abundance of enemies trapped on their own level, Shepard had barely managed to put down the last pirate in the room before Kaidan's barrier fell, his amp threatening to short out with the heated throbbing at the base of his skull. So now, with an impatient, seven hundred pound krogan one floor below, the main console keeping the lockdown activated one floor above, and a flagging biotic without even enough juice to Lift the ceiling panels, it was up to some good old fashioned soldiering on Shepard's part to get them out.

And this was how she ended up sitting atop Kaidan Alenko's shoulders in the stark red light of a pirate bunker.

Shepard smirked. Maybe it was about time she got back to the basics anyway. Too much tech and flare would dull anyone out.

Shepard pressed against the next panel, meeting the same resistance. She sighed, her smirk dipping back into a mild frown. "There's an entrance to the ducts here somewhere. I can hear the airflow. I just can't fucking _pin_ it." She thumped a fist on the panel two times. No give.

Kaidan shuffled below her. "Maybe we should have devised a better strategy _before_ you got up there."

Shepard glanced down, her frown slipping from her face easily. "Don't tell me you're getting tired."

"You're not exactly light, Shepard."

Her brows rose slightly with that one, amused, and when he looked up with the sudden and subtle veil of terror at the realization of what he said, she couldn't help the snort of laughter that left her.

"Armor," he defended quickly, stepping forward without instruction for her to test the next panel. "Your _armor's_ not exactly light."

"And your cover-ups aren't exactly believable." She returned to her work with a laugh.

Kaidan grumbled something distantly apologetic and mortified, but he had already dropped his glance, and Shepard's own laugh had drowned out anything he might have had to say.

He thought maybe that was best anyway.

Another resonant thud above him alerted him to yet another fixed panel, and he moved farther left in response.

"You know, Alenko, it's not so bad."

"Hmm?"

Shepard ran her fingers along the panel above her, testing. "At least with the damping field, we don't have Wrex growling through the radio to 'get a move on it' anymore."

Kaidan chuckled, steadying her swiftly when she leaned just a bit too forward.

Thumping her fist into another panel, Shepard released a low bark of a laugh. "Not that we couldn't hear him through the fucking floor anyway. The guy's got lungs the size of Sovereign's balls."

Kaidan actually guffawed then, his shoulders shaking with the action, and then the laugh turned quickly and comically into a half-choked grunt of pain.

Shepard braced against the ceiling, her grin blinding even through the jostle. "Whoa there, cowboy."

Kaidan winced through his laugh. "Jesus, Shepard, hurry the hell up."

"You can't tell me you don't enjoy this."

"Not as much as you seem to be."

"Just think of it as a new workout routine. I'm planning to introduce it to the marines." She winked cheekily.

"I don't know any marine who's up for a workout routine that chafes their cheeks," he answered, stretching the sore muscles of his neck and having little room to maneuver between her armored thighs. He grimaced at the motion.

"It couldn't be _me_ making you uncomfortable, could it?" she mocked, bravely squeezing her thighs, just slightly, barely enough for him to consider it purposeful.

He tilted his head back just enough to glance up at her as he raised one brow, stepping forward again and watching her push against the next panel. "Of course not, Commander. What could I _ever_ find uncomfortable about this situation?" He chanced a smirk up at her.

She flashed him a quick grin before returning to her work. "Oh come now, Lieutenant. I'm sure you've had your head between many a woman's thighs before," she teased.

"None of whom could have killed me with said thighs, Shepard," he shot back with the slightest bit of awkward desperation.

She let out a single bark of laughter, genuine and vibrant.

Kaidan's hands curled unconsciously tighter around her thighs, his throat tightening. He pressed his lips together and stilled.

She just sounded so free.

"Not that I couldn't kill you in less extravagant ways, Alenko, but you do give a woman pause," she laughed, her face turned toward the panels.

Even still, through the lightly dulled red of generator lights, he could see her beaming. That wide stretch of her almost-thick lips, invariably lopsided, with a clear glimpse of those almost-too-noticeable front teeth. Not a pretty smile by classic standards. Not a sly twist of lips or dimple-marked grin.

Franky Shepard had the kind of smile that seemed always on the verge of laughter, but the kind you couldn't share in public.

She had a smile for lovers.

Kaidan blinked down at the floor, swallowing thickly.

There was a hollow _thunk_ above his head.

"Ah," Shepard happily gasped, stilling in her perch on Kaidan's shoulders.

They both raised their eyes to the ceiling, expectant.

Shepard knocked an armored fist against the panel once more. There was an answering dull echo.

"Oh thank God," Shepard breathed, slamming her palm straight up into the panel and dislodging it from the framework, pushing it back and into the duct. "Shit, my cooch is so sore."

Kaidan's eyes widened momentarily, and then he was hiding his laughter in her thigh.

Shepard reached up and braced her hands along the duct, hoisting herself up. She paused with her elbows holding her weight, looking around the dimensions of the duct, one foot balanced on Kaidan's shoulder for support. "Looks like there's enough room to maneuver. I can pull you up from here." She pulled herself the rest of the way up, bending and bracing her stomach along the edge of the open duct so she could raise her legs up and crawl forward the rest of the way.

From down below, Kaidan watched her shimmy into the tube and then disappear. There was a round of reverberating thuds, and then she was turned around, peeking back out the opening, arms lowered toward him. "Let's go, boyscout."

Kaidan peered up at her, at the frizzy bun of brown hair at the top of her head, the wide, expectant eyes, her freckled, russet skin. She quirked a brow down at him, opening and closing her palms in a 'come on' motion.

"Ready?" she asked, arms wide.

Kaidan released a low breath, the soft lilt of a smile pulling at his lips. He reached for her.

They clasped arms, and Shepard braced herself against the walls of the duct, nodding down at him. He jumped.

"Oh fuck!" Shepard grunted with the effort of hauling him up, her brow furrowed in exertion. "How goddamn heavy are you?"

Kaidan heaved upward, trying to bend his elbows to the edge of the duct. " _Armor_ ," he groaned in defense again.

This time Shepard's smile peeked through her wince. "Gotta cut back on that bacon and beer, LT." She shuffled backwards slowly, her arms quaking with the weight of him.

"It's to cushion my fall when you inevitably drop me!" He glanced down a moment, slowly clambering upward.

"Fuck you, Alenko," Shepard gasped with painful laughter, her eyes shutting as she gave one last, single _pull_.

Kaidan hooked his elbows over the edge of the duct, took a sharp, instant breath, and then heaved upward. Shepard released his arms to reach over around his back, gripping his ammo belt and hauling him the rest of the way in.

"These guns held up Elysium, you know," she preened breathlessly, one trembling arm curled upward in a show of muscle. The sweat was already beading across her brow. "You're chump change compared."

Kaidan sprawled along the floor of the duct, his feet dangling through the opening. He pressed his sweaty cheek against the cool metal beneath and sighed in relief. "How silly of me to doubt you," he panted.

Shepard leaned back along the duct wall, one hand wiping over her brow. "Ha! Tell that to your fancy biotics." She closed her eyes and dropped her head back, her chest heaving slightly. She threw a finger gun his way, a tired side-smile gracing her lips. "I can take you any day of the week, Lieutenant."

Kaidan raised his cheek from the cool duct floor and glanced up at her. She hadn't opened her eyes. She sat there breathing, her legs spread open as much as possible in the cramped space, back against the duct wall at a slightly hunched angle. She wore an open-lipped smile, victorious and self-satisfied. She was sweating, the slanted shadow of red light from the generators in the room below breaking against her jaw, her chest, her knee.

She was all blunted angles and toothy grins.

All coarseness and earnestness.

All heart-hammerings.

She opened her eyes to look at him.

Kaidan's lips tipped into a smile of their own accord. "You certainly can," he agreed softly.

They sat there breathing heavily, smiling at each other, taking the cool duct air into their lungs and feeling their muscles slowly unbunch.

Shepard slapped her knee in a surge of sudden motivation. "Alright, enough lounging. We've got a krogan to rescue."

Kaidan chuckled, finally pushing up from his position along the floor. Suddenly, the pinch of biotic nerves at the base of his head, and the throbbing ache along his shoulders, and the tight flare of exhaustion brewing in his lungs – it was all inconsequential.

Because the weight of far more had already begun to nestle itself in the unreachable grooves of his heart.

Unreachable, but for one woman.

"Right behind you," he answered.

Franky Shepard had a smile for lovers.


End file.
